CHAPTER XIII.

C. THE GERMAN NOBILITY. II. KNIGHTS.

MIDW

IDWAY between the old dynastic nobility and the simple freemen came those who had been raised out of the class of freemen into the class of the mittelfrei, as the The Lower Swabian Mirror' calls them. In the South of Germany Nobility

they may be traced back to the time of the Frankish monarchy, but it was not till the fourteenth century that they were called noble and came to form a lower nobility (niederer Adel) above the simple freemen. The chief elements in this class were:

(a) The freemen who were eligible to the office of assessor (die schöffenbar Freien "), originally owners of larger estates (three hides and upwards 1), and chosen for assessors as the richer and more important of the freemen. In time the office, like all others, became hereditary, and they succeeded for a longer time than the mass of free peasants in keeping their estates free from burdens and subject to the jurisdiction of the counts instead of that of the bailiffs. Later on they were merged in the class of knights or of territorial lords.

(6) Vassals of the nobility; and after the rise of knighthood, knights with knight's fees 2.

• [For the meaning of Schöffen see Hallam, Middle Ages, Ch. ii. Pt. 2 ; Savigny, Geschichte des römischen Rechts im Mittelalter, i. ch. 4; and infr. Bk. vii. ch. 7.]

(c) Later on, many knights without fees, most of them descendants of vassals, who had received a knight's education; but also, as time went on, soldiers raised to knighthood by the emperor or his representatives.

(d) Numerous retainers (Ministerialen, Edelknechte) often · sprung from the servile or half-free class, and even in the thirteenth century sharply distinguished from men of knightly birth. These rose by their offices and service at the court, their large property and grand style of living: at first they had no feudal rights, but they gradually rose to the level of the knights, and were absorbed in their order.

(e) The noble families (die Geschlechter, Patrizier) in many cities of the Empire, more rarely in provincial cities (Landstädten), originally descended from the assessor class or from knights, and distinguished by their share in city government. In the lower nobility, as well as the higher, the principle becomes hereditary, of inheritance tended to supersede considerations of landed estate, of knightly life, or of court service, and hence arose a large number of nobles, who owned no other title to nobility but an old family-tree. At the same time their attitude and exclutowards the freeman and peasant class became more exclusive at the very moment when the distinction between them was ceasing to have a real meaning. Thus the passion for grand titles was abundantly gratified. A large number of barons and even counts and princes issued from this order, getting their titles either by regular grant or by usurpation, but without any reality to correspond to them.

In Germany a nobility was never developed out of the civil and military offices to the same extent as in France. The learned nobility of the Doctores Juris were the only exception to the hereditary principle. On the other hand, Germany showed the greatest readiness in adopting the French form of nobility by letters patent.

sive.

leges.

The knights of the Empire, on their scattered domains, Their priviobtained a considerable degree of independence, but the lower nobility, as a whole, had no territorial sovereignty and no place in the Imperial Estates. On the other hand, they had a share in feudal law, and had certain special privileges in

Decline,

from the

religious foundations and benefices. Some of them exercised the jurisdiction of bailiffs and territorial lords, which they inherited in connection with definite domains.

Finally, they had the right to sit in the estates of their country (Landstandschaft), and formed the nobility of its court. The power of this order rose to its highest after the sixteenth thirteenth century, and survived till the middle of the sixteenth, when it began to decline before the irresistible revolution in economical, military, social and official relations. The Thirty Years' War helped to complete its destruction.

century.

1815.

In the Germany of to-day the lower nobility, as a political institution, has become more completely disorganised than the imperial institution of the higher nobility. Many causes combined to undermine it: the feudal tie became weak, and States lost their feudal character and constitution, armies were revolutionised, the official class ceased to be hereditary, citizen families rose to high places, the old German Empire fell to pieces, and representative institutions were developed. More recently, too, changes from above and from below have abolished these privileges, sometimes singly, sometimes in the mass.

In Germany, as well as in France, the third estate would not tolerate the privileges of the nobility, and disputed its very existence. The unlimited extension of nobility to all descendants brought the claims of the nobility into glaring contrast with the facts on which they were founded, and the inconsistency was heightened, and the confusion increased, by comparison with the upper citizen class. If the inferior princes of the Empire could not resist the land-hunger of the princes of the Confederation of the Rhine, still less could the knights of the Empire. Their estates were incorporated in the territories of princes. The Confederation of 1815 tried to preserve a privileged position for their families, and to secure them autonomy, a seat in the provincial estates, rights of jurisdiction and patronage, forest privileges, and a privileged position in the courts. But this tinkering was ineffectual. To the modern conception of public law, patrimonial jurisdiction was as intolerable as freedom from taxation.

Speaking generally, the so-called lower nobility in Germany

nobility as

has no longer any special rights in law. As a political and imperial institution it has ceased to exist. What remnants of its old glory, besides its name and arms, it retains and exercises on occasion, have only an antiquarian interest. But The still the territorial nobles, and in less degree the nobles of German the court, though without landed property, occupy an im- it is. portant place in society, and indirectly exercise a considerable influence on policy and on official appointments. The appointments to the higher military posts, and to offices at court and in the diplomatic service, are mainly, though not necessarily, made from this class.

The merely titular nobility have gradually become merged by marriage and occupation with the upper citizen class, both in social and political life. The German nobility of Knights have not a patriotic and national history like the English aristocracy. A large part of the territorial nobility offered a long and stubborn resistance to modern ideas and reforms. Many of these nobles, in their romantic enthusiasm for mediæ val conditions, were readier to serve territorial absolutism than the freedom of the people. Hence the German nobility are not. so popular as the English; like the French legitimist nobility, they are often regarded with distrust and hatred by the masses. Still they have produced many enlightened men and distinguished patriots. They have given the army its best leaders, and in the great crisis of the national development, the leaders in the struggle for reform have come from among the nobility. The question of a reform of the German nobility, as an institu- Its Reform. tion, has been much discussed in recent times; but the best opportunity for it, the period from 1852 to 1860, was passed

over.

The attempts at reform only showed how little influence the friends of reform had with the members of their order, and how opposed the mass of them were to any thorough and effective change.

With the foundation of the German Empire the possibility arises of a reconstituted and national aristocracy, in which the lifeless and unfruitful constituents of the old nobility should be ruthlessly set aside, and the sounder elements retained, to be blended with other and more modern aristocratic tendencies.

An aristocracy, powerful, independent and educated, is a necessity of life to a great people like the Germans, and such a counterpoise of quality as against quantity is especially necessary when the weight of the democratic masses is so heavy in the balance. In a purified aristocracy which should thus form a middle estate (aristokratischer Mittelstand) the hereditary principle would not have the sole nor unlimited sway. Personal nobility (Individualadel) demands recognition as well as nobility of race (Rasseadel): a noble race separated from its foundations in Society may in time lose its nobility.

Notes.-I. Riehl, in his book on die bürgerliche Gesellschaft (1854), has given a lively picture of the social significance of the German aristocracy. The social position which it still occupies has a value of its own, but without political organisation it cannot be permanent or effective. Classes (Stände) which are merely social groups, are only the foundation of classes in the organic and political sense.

2. In the Deutsches Statswörterbuch (i. p. 30 ff., and p. 58 ff.) I have based my proposals for reform on the distinction between passive (ruhender Adel) and active nobility (wirklicher Adel). The former is conferred by birth, and is only potential: the latter starts with personal preeminence, in which the potential nobility becomes actual. I have since made the pathetic discovery that my idea was anticipated two generations ago by Justus Möser (Patriot. Phantasien, iv. 248), only to be disregarded. See my Geschichte der Statswissenschaft, p. 423.